The picture you didn't see

Merry Christmas everyone!

Hasn't it been so nice to celebrate Christmas? I think it has. This year we made an extra special announcement. Hopefully you get it from the below picture...

And if you don't, it's okay. Baby Coopito is due to arrive in late June. We are going to have another fun-filled year, that is for sure.

May you all enjoy the holiday season. God bless you all!

Family pictures 2012

Well, I don't know why it told me I couldn't upload pictures last time. Maybe it was bogus message. Either way, here are some of our most recent family pictures.

We are still around

Blogger told me the other day that I have to buy more space? Is this really the case? I am not a super frequent blogger and I feel like it is a little sudden. Advise would be helpful.

In other news, we are still alive. Jimmy made it through "finals" quite successfully, seeing as how he had no finals, just some papers. He is quite content this year. Only 1 semester to go. It really doesn't seem possible, but thank goodness that is the case.

I however, still have to give 2 finals. Ugh! My ability to enjoy grading papers (which is very low anyways) has severely declined. The only way I make it manageable is by listening to Christmas music or eating junking food. The later isn't very healthy, so I try to stick with solution A.  I keep reminding myself, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday.

But would you like to hear some uncool news. I was told I could have changed my last final to another day. Yeah, this was last week when finals had just started and there was no way for me to change it. I guess that is what happens when you are an adjunct. Oh well!

Lucy is incredibly excited for Christmas. We have been practicing names. She knows her girl cousins' names fairly well. Not so much for the boys. They are harder to say. But she does know how to say Jo(e) extremely well, and that covers two people, so score for us! My name is slowly transitioning from Baba to Mama (mommy). It makes me happy. We have discovered in general that she has a hard time with "M" words. Cows say "booooo!"  She will get it eventually.

But by far my favorite thing that she says right now is peanut butter. She loves that stuff, and tells us about it all the time. If we give her bread she says "peanut butter!" If she in the kitchen she says "peanut butter!" Today we went to a Christmas party and she proudly declared "peanut butter!" several times for a very entertained audience.

She is also starting to tell us after (and once a twice before) when she has filled her diaper. Sometimes is a false alarm, but it has got me contemplating potty training. Not enough to start right now, but at least be aware of the possibility. Frankly it scares me a bit.

And that is Lucy -- which is all that really matters right?! She is a  real smart cookie, which by the way is another word that she knows REALLY well! 

Thanksgiving

Well family and friends, we had a delightful thanksgiving. We were not able to make the trip up to NH/MA this year because I had to teach until Tuesday, but we did manage to make a shorter trip to NC where my aunt, uncle and kids live.

And in those short 4 hours down we found out that our dear little Lucy gets car sick. Yeah, that is right she threw up twice on the way down, and once on the way back. We are seriously considering a garbage cover for her carseat when we make the trip up to New England for Christmas. And our car needs some seriously air freshener, but such is life.

But all things considered it was still a relatively good traveling trip, and the time we had in NC was very nice. I wouldn't say it was all sleepy, lazy stuff. If you know my family in NC you know that there is constantly something going on. They still have several teenagers at home for goodness sake, but nevertheless we had a great time. We enjoyed A LOT of food and lot of fun times playing in the park and going for walks and hanging out with the relatives. We even got to see my cousin who just recently came home from his mission in Chile.

During this trip I found out that Lucy loves playing in sandboxes. I must say, after the summer of her eating dirt and getting impetigo twice I think I have been leary to have her playing with any sort of dirt-like material. Apparently it is the best thing ever! She played in the park's sandbox for the majority of our park visit. And all she did was lift up the sand and put it back down.

Consequently when we went to the park today, she found the sandbox again and made 20 or so small piles of sand on the bench that outlined the sandbox. And she was quite content. I feel like we need to build a sandbox, but unfortunately we are in the wrong time of year for such an undertaking. Maybe snow will suffice when it finally comes.

Anyways, that is the discombobulated, unorganized version of what happened last week. I would love to end with some pictures, but our camera was left in NC and will be shipped to us soon. Hopefully I can appease the masses with a few pictures later.

I will end this post with a few things I am thankful for which ultimately comes down to family and beliefs. Without either one, I am not sure I would know what to do with myself. Thank goodness we have something to live for..

And that is all...for now!

What have we been doing...

This was a pretty good week. We voted, we did normal stuff, we had Grandma and Grandpa Coop to visit. I will let the pictures do most of the explaining.

Lucy went to vote with us. She was pretty unhappy that we had to stand in line and made her stay in our arms the whole time. But she sure looked cute.

 She is also totally into coloring these days. She holds the pencil like a pro.

And then Grandma and Grandpa Coop came to visit. And we went to an awesome place called Boxerwood gardens where you could play in a kitchen and relax on a hammock and still in a giant chair made of large limbs. It was pretty awesome. We even helped Grandma and Grandpa Coop find a geocache.

We also went to a VMI parade where they shot off a number of cannons, we ate a number of places, one of which had some pretty amazing gelato, we played board games while Lucy slept, and looked around town at some of the local shops. Jimmy and I took advantage of grandparents being around and went and saw a movie. We haven't been on a date in some time. It was delightful!

 It has been a good week. We hope you all felt the same about your week. And if not, well here's hoping that the next one turns out better!

She's just a little cute rain cloud....

sickness, sadness and sorry

Today in Church, while Lucy was squirming, I pulled out our camera so she could look at some pictures of herself. Yes, she likes to look at herself. Next thing I know, the camera screen is blue and all of the pictures on the camera were erased. I was a little sad. Mostly because I took some video of her going down a slide all by herself, and now I don't have it anymore. I guess is it mostly my fault. Kids are too good with buttons, I say!

But other than that we have all been a little sick. Lucy and I went home after the first hour of church and slept. And slept. It was heavenly! Sometimes a nap is all you need to feel a little more with it. Then we woke up a little after Jimmy got home, and while he napped, we played in the living room.

 Lucy is becoming very verbal these days. She has always been very verbal, but we are beginning to understand more of what she is saying. Today she learned how to say "sorry!" No, she doesn't know what it means, but if you tell her to say sorry after she does something wrong, she will casually say "sorry," and then walk away. It is pretty cute. She can also say and sign "please" and makes some noises that kind of sound like "thank you."  She also says "away" when we are putting toys or clothes away and helps, to the best of her abilities, to put things in the correct drawer or bin. It is quite amusing. I must say I quite impressed with her ability to pick up words and signs these days.

Even though I am appreciating her ability to use more words I still think my favorite thing that she does is when he will stick out her chin, scrunch her eyes and tell us very important things in her babbling Lucy language. It always seems so important. I can't wait for the day when I can response more adequately. She is probably very annoyed that we never seem to know the right answer. My my she is a funny little girl!

Life

Well I think we can safely say that life is going as life should be. It is crazy sometimes and not so crazy other times. We experience mostly craziness, but yesterday was actually a very nice slow day. And we took advantage of it.

We slept in, we went and bought toothbrushes, we walked around town, we went to the park, and then we made it to a little bbq at the Law School. Later I made polenta with spinach, and we ate it. And at the end of the Jimmy and I finished watching a  movie when Lucy went to bed. It was a delightful day! I should try to get all my work done before the weekend, every weekend. We will see how that goes.

So here are some pictures of the weekend..and few from Friday morning and afternoon.

Oh and here is one from Thursday. Lucy loved to ride on the horse. She is pretty serious about it.

This was Friday morning right before her babysitter came to pick her up and I went to work. She had only been awake an hour and she was already exhausted. I guess our rug is comfortable enough.

Ummm...cute?! She looks so grown up in this picture.

We walked to VMI and ran around the parade grounds for a little while. Lucy was especially interested in the cannon.

And we went to a small park that was filled with leaves. Lucy loved it!

It is nice to have a weekend like this.

Frolicking...

feeling love...

Last week I wrote a post after a somewhat crazy week. I was feeling all pitiful and overwhelmed, so I wrote about it. I never posted it because I wanted to include some pictures, but I didn't have them at the time.

In the end I don't think I am going to put up that post. It was far too depressing and self-consuming.

Today I will talk about tender mercies.

This last week was not nearly as crazy, and life felt like life. It was long some days, but all in all just full of life.

We had gone to DC to visit our friends the Ericksons. They are fabulous people, with two fabulous kids. And we enjoyed delicious chicken, and even made it to the Temple. Tender mercy, we did get stuck in crazy traffic and therefore did not end up in any meltdown scenarios. Believe me, most trips to DC end and possibly finish that way. This trip was uneventful in that respect and I took that as a tender mercy. Plus, I got to snuggle Bear, their very cute 1ish month old. It was delightful!

Then we started our week. It was hard some days and easy other days. But we were doing okay.

Friday I headed into work, dodging some rain as I biked. I started classes, lectured some, and felt a little better about some of my students' performances (that was something that stressed me out the previous week). Around lunchtime I got a call from Jimmy. Well, a few calls, but I was swamped with students coming to my office.

I finally got a chance to call Jimmy back to find out he was stranded on the side of RT 81, just outside of Staunton. He sounded calm and not really perturbed by the fact that our car, that was inspected a week before, was now acting up. I called about a tow truck, called a few friends, and he was able to get back to Lexington (without our car) in time to be at part of his class in the afternoon.

We remarked later that night that it was amazing how calm we both had been and how miraculous it was that the car broke down somewhat close to the shop, and that it was the weekend and not the middle of the week. We thought, the Lord really is looking out for us.

And then there was a great outpouring of help from our friends from church. And we felt even more the great love Heavenly Father had for us. We even have a car that we can use until ours is fixed. And even though our week was ending on a somewhat eventful note, it was not all bad. I felt much better about this week, than I had the last. Simple tender mercies that really made all the difference.

On another note, Lucy and her friend went to a fantastic garden/park the other day. They have a great play area for kids, with mud and dirt and water and rocks. Lucy was in HEAVEN. I thought I might share a picture  or two (or 5) from that event. Just because she is cute even when she is wet and covered in mud. 

Mice

Yesterday Jimmy decided to clean out one of the closets in Lucy's room. Lucy doesn't use it, we do. It was loaded with a bunch of boxes and infant clothes and toys. The stuff we don't need out anymore.

Let me step back a few days for a minute. Jimmy started this process because he was looking for his Ipod. Earlier in the week he went through one of the boxes with books and towels and found mouse nest with a dead baby mouse inside. Yuck! I am glad he disposed of it.

Because he still had not found his Ipod, and because that closet needed to be cleaned he resumed the organization of said closet. He had gone through all of the boxes except for one that he didn't see. It was right behind a bunch of unused boxes we had saved for potential moves later on. I pointed it out to him, hoping that his blessed Ipod would be inside.  As he picked up the hidden box he said to me "would you like to see what a mouse nest looks like?" I didn't really hear him. All I really heard was me screaming like a little girl when a mouse came running out of the closet and hit me in the foot.

The mouse ran back into the closet and Jimmy yelled because he was stuck in the closet with a mouse and a heavy box. He threw down the box and went to put shoes on. Lucy and I hid in the kitchen. Gosh I am a wimp. Imagine how scared that mouse must have been.

For the next hour Jimmy cleaned out the closet and tried to catch the mouse. And he didn't catch that mouse, but he did clean out the closet. This morning we didn't see any mouse remnants like we had the day before. We hope that the mouse leaves because even though we don't love having to use traps, we really can not have them leaving their business on our counters.

And that was our weekend. We also went to Charlottsville, which is a really nice town. I got some new running socks and Jimmy got to look at some toys. Lucy got to eat rice and beans. It was an exciting trip!

And that's that.

Just a quick reader question, are the comments working okay? I changed my blog to a setting where hypothetically anyone can comment. Maybe this is just a plea to get feedback, but seriously, is it working?

mountain racing and somersaults

Today Jimmy and I ran trail races. A better phrase would be "mountain races". Jimmy's was a 5 mile race, and mine was a half marathon (13.1 miles). It was rough, not bad, just rough. I guess the quote on the back of the shirt best describes the manta for this race "your pain is our pleasure..." And boy, did they do a good job. 

My race started with a three mile hill A.K.A mountain, then 4ish miles of downhill, and then rolling hills until the finish.

I am not ashamed to admit that I did a lot of hiking as well as running. It was a lot more effective than using my running stance the entire way. My time was over 2 hours, which normally would depress me, but it was such a hard course that I was not disappointed at all. The winning man ran a 1:30ish, and the winning woman a 2:03ish. So getting a 2:14ish, didn't feel bad at all. It was by far the hardest race I have ever done.

Jimmy said his race went decently as well. He came in third overall. Yeah, that's right third! And he said that he was able to run with a few people around him. I think he was pretty nervous about running by himself since his training was always with me. And though he wished he had run more, he still felt good at the end. His was also very hilly and difficult.

When we sat down to eat lunch, there was a couple talking about how the husband did ironman races. Did I mention that in 2020 I want to do an Ironman? Anyways, generally the kind of people that ran today were all pretty insane/intense, but in a really friendly sort of way. Besides the 5 mile, and half marathon, there was also a marathon and 40 mile race. I am glad I didn't decide to venture the marathon this time (or 40 miler!).

I have to say, the trails were beautiful, and made me miss my cross country days. Plus, it is a really nice park only 40 minutes or so from Lexington. I think we may take Lucy hiking there sometime. Maybe not a 13 mile hike...

In other news, Lucy learned how to roll over. She is walking, so this is not the infant rolling over stuff. This is the somersault rolling stuff. I don't know if you would give her a "10" for form, but certainly a "10" for effort.

My grandparents have video of me doing a series of somersaults when I was young, so naturally my Grandpa asked over the summer if Lucy had started to do them as well. Well, here is the video of her doing somersaults. Maybe not quite a many, but she still has some technique to refine before she can do multiple somersaults at once. 

Time flies...

Well, those last two weeks kind of just whistled by. I didn't realize we would be at the point of craziness so fast. But in all honesty, we are doing just fine.

This week is THE week when we started everything. Monday Jimmy began Immersion week. Tuesday I taught at Dabney, and Wednesday I started teaching at VMI. And you know what? Even though I am teaching quite a bit more, it seems manageable. I may be hitting myself in a week, but I am going to give myself a little pat on the back for almost feeling put together.

I even have time to write this. It must not be that bad if I have time to write something.

VMI is an interesting place. I was warned at the orientation that classes are a little bit different. I suppose the biggest difference is the roll call they do at the beginning of each class, where I am saluted after I am told by the section leader who is absent. That is a little unfamiliar. Besides that, I really only notice the fact that I am called "mam" almost too frequently. I think they like to cover their bases when it comes to respect. Oh and the bells. I was totally unprepared to stop lecturing when the bell went off. I quickly hurried through and example and messed it up because I was flustered. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

Jimmy is really enjoying Immersion. Basically he is preparing for a case from start to finish. Their deadlines are daily and they work together to put together all the necessary information and documents. It is fast paced, but Jimmy says it is doable. I think he likes it because their is no room to getting distracted and it is applicable to what he will be doing in the near future (hooray!). Two weeks of Immersion and then he starts his externship and takes a few seminar based classes.

Lucy really loves her babysitter (and ALL her kids!). She lives just down the street from us, in a beautiful house with a lovely garden and yard. She loves all the kids because they read to her and pull her around in a little red wagon. Awesome, right?! I am glad it is such a good place for her.

And that is life, as current as I can be. 

Back to the grind

I wish I could say that in the last two weeks I have been doing a lot of productive things, but that would be a lie. I watched the Olympics far too much. I couldn't help it. I did make pickles the other day...yeah me!

And now Lucy, Jimmy and I are going back to Virginia tomorrow. Yes, that is right, the summer is over for us. Tomorrow we journey to the southern regions for another year of law school and teaching.

I am teaching 4, count 'em for 4 classes, 1 of which I was offered two weeks ago. It was an astronomy class. I couldn't resist. And turns out it is the same day as my other classes, so all it really entails is a little more prep, not anymore childcare. Thank goodness for awesome graduate school friends who have taught astronomy classes before. They are my lifesavers.

Jimmy has a full semester, but not so full that our schedules totally collide. It looks like Lucy will only need a babysitter 3 days a week. He is interning at another mediation office and taking seminar based classes. It is a lot more like a clinic based year, much more Jimmy's style.

Lucy is a totally different baby from when we left to come up the New England. She walks and talks and gets into everything. I am excited for her to see some of her Lexington friends again.

So we get back tomorrow, and we have about 2 weeks before the full crazy schedule begins. Until then we will be finalizing a babysitter, participating in new faculty orientations, preparing for teaching classes, getting new phones, unpacking our apartment again, and trying to settle back into our "normal" life.

Bring it on!

Lucy April versus Lucy late July

Lucy at the Temple

Last weekend we took Lucy to the Boston temple, where Jimmy and I were married. Very picturesque I must say. And goodness gracious Lucy is looking so grown up these days. 

cooprider family vacation

Thursday, Friday and Saturday we went on a mini-vacation to southern Maine. It was a our first official family get-away since we have been married. Sure we have gone on little day trips, but this was the real deal--camping, beach, festival and of course food! 

Let me commence with the mini vacation summary. Hold on tight, this is a long post, especially for me. 

We began our trip by travelling to Pownal Maine where our campsite was located. It was a beautiful little state park, with lots of walking trails and pretty walk-in campsites. Our campsite was on the edge of the camping area, far from other people. 

  

We had a fabulous day once we arrived. We had lunch, Lucy took a nap in the tent and then we walked around the trails for an hour or two. Our only reason to return was Lucy loaded her diaper, making her an unbearable companion on daddy's back.

Before starting dinner we went into Freeport to pick up a few things, namely a citronella candle and walk around. We had heard LL Bean was founded in Freeport and wanted to take a little stroll. Little did we know that Freeport should be name LL Bean World. When I put LL Bean into the GPS for Freeport, 15 different stores came up. We found the closest one, and walked around at least 3-4 of the different stores. Each one represents a different product type. We started in the hunting store, but spent most of our time in the clothing store. Did you know there is story time, and knot tying wall in the kids' section. Awesome, right? Despite wanting to buy everything in sight, we bought only a swimming hat for Lucy. It will be featured in later pictures.

When we got back daddy made a fire and we prepared grilled veggies and brauts for dinner. Despite looking enthralled by the fire pit when it wasn't lit, she was quite subdued when it was going. Thank goodness. I don't know what we would have done if she was running at the fire the entire night.

After dinner we rinsed Lucy off with a washcloth (she was coated in bug spray and sunscreen) and put her to bed. She protested at first, but then lulled off to sleep pretty quickly. Too bad that was not how the night proceeded.

In preparation for our camping trip, earlier in the week we slept in the tent with Lucy. She did fantastic, but that may have had to do with the fact that it didn't get much below 70 degrees at night. On Thursday, the day temperature was fantastic, but it was a little bit chilly at night. Because of this Lucy, who was tossing a turning (like she normally does anyways) was cold and constantly tried to sleep on top of me and Jimmy. There were moments where she was sleeping perpendicular to both Jimmy and me, her head on my stomach, her feet kicking Jimmy. Needless to say, none of us got much sleep.

 

The next day we headed to the "beach" in Freeport. When Jimmy looked up beaches in the area, some reviews mentioned that there really weren't nice beaches within and hour, but we thought we would try out some anyways. The reviews were right. We went to Winslow park, which besides having a really nice wooden boat for kids to climb on, did not have a typical pretty beach. Besides that, it was low tide and what we observed and experienced was mostly mud and rocks. Lucy decided she would see how it tasted. 

After the beach we headed to Yarmouth for the Clam Festival. We parked a little outside of town, and were shuttled in by bus to the downtown area. This festival was the highlight of the trip for Jimmy. First we started with some face painting, which we decided would be easiest on Lucy's arm. Turns out she was so interested in the painting that we had no need to hold her. 

 

Then we walked up and down the streets of Yarmouth where they had a HUGE craft fair --probably over 500 vendors. The first time around we looked, and tasted all sorts of local goods, from jalepeno jellies to lobster cream dips. I eyed  some wallets and Lucy waved "Hi!" to almost every person we saw. We then headed back to get some seafood. We tried both fried and steamed clams. Jimmy was in heaven. After lunch we went up to the ECO fair where they had granola and charizo and alpakas and chickens. Soon after the ECO fair, we caught a wagon ride with two large draft-sized horses. Lucy was entranced the entire ride. 

After we made on final sweep on the craft fair, I finally consented to buying a new wallet (which had gone up in price by the way), and then we headed back to catch the bus to our car.

We then drove all the way to Salem NH, where we had a hotel room. We ate out that night, and afterwords didn't do anything noteworthy--let Lucy fall asleep in her Pack-n-Play and watched The Day After Tomorrow. It was pretty funny listening to her fall asleep. She literally talked to herself for over an hour before to fell asleep on her back, without a single blanket covering her.

The next morning we woke up and headed to Portmouth NH for breakfast at the Friendly Toast. Jimmy researched food places based on some of the foodie shows he watches. This one was known for a large omelette filled with meat. Naturally that is what Jimmy ordered, I got a greek inspired egg scramble, with feta, loads of spinach and olives. Everything was delicious and quite too much to eat. We left, wobbling out the door.

Our next stop was Salibury beach. The last time we went to Salibury beach Lucy was 2ish month old. For the most part she laid under an umbrella and squinted. This time Lucy, sporting her new swimming hat, played with the sand like a champ. She was a little frightened by the waves at first, but starting loving them once she noticed how mild the temperature was.

 After our beach excursion we headed up the coast to Rye NH where the Seacost Science Center is located. The drive was beautiful with the exception of the Hampton Beach area. There were far too many people and cars. It was slightly nerve wracking. Once we made it to the science center both Jimmy and realized we probably could have gone to beach at the center because it was part of a small park with a small sandy beach nearby. It would have been a lot less crowded. We noted it for our next trip.

We ate lunch on a picnic bench and then headed into the science center. Along with cute exhibits there was a  touch tanks and some fish tanks. Lucy loved the touch tank simply because it was a lot like a big cool bath. She put her foot in at least twice, and probably scared a lot of star fish. So we headed to the fish tanks and she enjoyed pointing at the fish, most of which seemed bigger than her. And then we had to go because gave us the universal sign of being done, she loaded her diaper once again.

So we went outside, changed her diaper, ate some pudding, and then got in the car. And sad that our trip was over, we drove back to Nelson NH. It was a perfect trip.

Well, well, well, look at me all descriptive and such. I hope this didn't bore you too much. This certainly was  a meaningful and fun trip for our little family. We now know what kind of things we would like to do next time, and how to have fun as a family. Here's to the next family vacation--which may not happen for another year or so...